LUFKIN, Texas — A 47-year-old Lufkin man has been arrested and charged with capital murder in the shooting deaths of a mother and son who lived in the same duplex as him, after a two-week investigation that police say turned in part on a dispute over Wi-Fi service. Jeremiah McGee was arrested on Friday, November 6, at his home in connection with the deaths of Maria Davalos, 61, and her son, Ariel Arellano Jr., 32, who were found dead on October 23 inside a residence in the 900 block of Third Street in Lufkin, the Lufkin Police Department announced. The charge is an allegation: McGee has not been convicted of anything and is presumed innocent unless and until he is proven guilty in court.
Source: The 936 / KTRE reporting (Nov 6, 2026)
The case began on October 23, when officers responded to a 911 call reporting a shooting at the Third Street residence. The call was placed by a son and brother of the victims, according to reporting on the police announcement. Officers who entered the home found Davalos and Arellano dead from apparent gunshot wounds, and what began as an emergency call became a double-homicide investigation led by Lufkin police detectives with assistance from the Texas Rangers, the state's elite investigative agency, which routinely supports local departments in major cases in smaller Texas cities.
Two weeks of detective work, then a Friday-afternoon arrest
Lufkin Police Chief Travis Brazil said detectives, working with the Texas Rangers, developed information that led them to identify McGee as the primary suspect, and then kept gathering evidence until they had enough to obtain both an arrest warrant and a second search warrant for his home. “This arrest comes after two weeks of solid detective work by our team,” Brazil said. “The detectives, with assistance of the Texas Rangers, investigated multiple leads and information provided by individuals close to the case.” Police arrested McGee at his home at around 1 p.m. on Friday and searched the property again the same day. Investigators believe they recovered the weapon used in the killings, police said, although authorities have not released further details about the firearm or any forensic testing of it.
Source: The 936 / KTRE reporting (Nov 6, 2026)
Lufkin police Lt. James Cowan said investigators interviewed multiple people during the two weeks, including McGee himself, and that those interviews helped detectives establish the connection between the suspect and the victims. McGee and the victims were not strangers: police determined that he lived in the same duplex in the 900 block of Third Street — neighbours sharing a building, on the same street where the shootings happened.
What police say about the Wi-Fi dispute — and what they have not said
According to Lt. Cowan, McGee told investigators that he had been involved in a dispute with Davalos and Arellano over Wi-Fi service, and other people interviewed by police also described ongoing disputes over the Wi-Fi between the two households. That detail has drawn wide attention because of how ordinary the subject of the argument was. But police have been careful on the central question: authorities have not said whether the disagreement was the motive for the shootings, and they have released no further information about the circumstances leading up to the deaths. Readers should treat the Wi-Fi dispute as something police say McGee himself raised in interviews — not as a proven explanation for why two people were killed.
Source: Classic Country 104.5 / WENG reporting on the Lufkin police announcement (Nov 6, 2026)
Why the charge is capital murder
Police said the capital murder charge stems from the deaths of two people during the same criminal episode. Under Texas law, killing more than one person in the same criminal transaction is one of the circumstances that elevates a murder charge to capital murder — the most serious homicide charge in the state, which can carry life in prison without parole or, where prosecutors seek it, the death penalty. No announcement has been made about what punishment prosecutors will seek in this case, and that decision, along with a formal indictment, lies ahead. For now, the charge marks the point at which a two-week investigation became a criminal case against a named defendant — a case in which the state, not the police announcement, will have to prove every element in court.
Jeremiah McGee is accused of the killings; he has not been convicted. Police say he told investigators about a dispute over Wi-Fi service, but officers have explicitly not said that dispute was the motive, and no court has tested the evidence. Awaaz Punjab will report the motive only when investigators or a court establish it.
Lufkin, and what happens next
Lufkin is the county seat of Angelina County in Deep East Texas, a city of roughly 34,000 people where a double killing and a two-week manhunt-by-investigation have been followed closely by neighbours on and around Third Street. McGee was booked into the Angelina County Jail after his arrest, where he was awaiting a bond determination as of the police announcement on Friday. The next steps are procedural but important: a bond decision by a magistrate, review of the case by Angelina County prosecutors, and a grand jury decision on a formal capital murder indictment. Police may also release more about the firearm investigators believe they recovered and any forensic testing on it. Until then, two families on one block of Third Street are living with opposite losses — one grieving a mother and son, the other facing the most serious charge Texas law allows — while the question of why this happened remains, officially, unanswered.